


roses and gestures

by slytherintbh



Series: halcyon days [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Established Relationship, Fluff, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, Post-Seine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 23:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12692286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherintbh/pseuds/slytherintbh
Summary: Javert is attacked one night, and Valjean finds himself nursing the man back to health. It is not the first time. It will likely not be the last. But - flowers and gestures of love will see them through the halcyon days of their lives.





	roses and gestures

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daydreamingatnight](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=daydreamingatnight).



> _'...it got me thinking about hurt/comfort with like post-Seine Javert going back to his duties and getting injured and so Valjean has to take care of him and nurse him through sort of something near to PTSD. I mean, I'm sure they both have trauma after everything, but it would be nice to see Valjean helping him through something not entirely "jumping into a river like a damn fool" related.'_

This is not the first time that Javert has been late in returning home from his duties, and it certainly shan’t be the last, but Valjean finds himself worrying anyway. After the lives they have had, how can he ever cease worrying?

Food is going cold on the table. It was nothing special, only a hearty soup with Javert’s (surprisingly skilful) homemade bread, yet seeing it sitting there prods at Valjean constantly. Nights eating alone remind him of when Cosette was home, when Toussaint lived in Rue Plumet with them, more recently reminds him of Javert’s tardiness. Valjean’s own bowl is, as such, untouched.

He is no stranger to hunger.

Eyeing at the dusk blanketing the town, Valjean bites at the inside of his mouth, and peers through the front door. He spies no errant inspector cursing at the knotted roots of the trees and the overgrown foliage of their garden. Birds cry out sweet evening songs, yet to Valjean it seems an omen, and he shuts the door.

Perhaps Inspector Dubois has demanded an audience for his terrible ideas once again?  _ That _ is thoroughly plausible. For all Valjean is kind and merciful to a fault, he cannot fathom how on the earth Dubois got his initial footing in the police force, never mind how he has risen to a similar position as Javert. Dubois is white as the fallen snow and Javert’s Romani heritage unfairly hinders him due to its plainness on his skin, it mystifies Valjean that anyone could consider them equals. Javert ought to be Commissaire by now.   _ Especially _ now that he has learned of mercy.

Trying to take his mind from it, Valjean picks up his latest book and manages to read a chapter before he tires of the convoluted plot.

He goes to the window. Darkness has properly fallen. From their well-shielded home, all that can be seen outside is the garden and the shadowing giants of Paris, wealthy neighbourhood rising from all sides to guard them. It was one of the first things Javert had said of the house when they had moved out of No.7 Rue de L’homme Armé.  _ “It is very private,”  _ he had muttered, stabilising himself on his cane, hands shifting subconsciously to check his bandages.  _ “Yes, this suits me well. Although you must tame this zoo. Plants need not twine about each other like lovers.” _

At the time Javert had had no knowledge of lovers, and as such he has changed his mind. Valjean laughs faintly at the memory. Can it truly have been only a few years ago? Two summers have passed since. They are onto their third. No hearts and passions have recently been stirred to action, that vain uprising which has left only personal impression, causing Marius to appear distant at times and shun weaponry like the plague.

Tapping his fingers against the window pane, Valjean finds himself overwhelmed. It happens often, the weight of his whole life oppresses him, the joys of the last few years –

Silently, he turns and paces along the floorboards. He reads the clock on the mantle. 9:37. Javert’s shift finished at 8. Surely he is simply assisting some junior gendarme with his paperwork, or got caught up in a chase which has taken longer than expected. Inspectors hardly keep normal hours.

Then Valjean sits and reads a little longer and when he looks up it is 10:23 and Javert still isn’t home.

Valjean nibbles at a slice of bread to soothe his anxious stomach. How Javert will laugh when he arrives home and finds Valjean so worried on his account!  _ You are a terrible fool, _ Javert will say, and kiss Valjean even though he is exhausted from work, and perhaps he will allow Valjean to ease the tension from his limbs in the usual way without feeling pressured into reciprocity as he always seems to –

10:37.

This is foolishness. Valjean is staring at the clock with a terror once reserved for the law.

10:39.

Javert has arrived later than this, there was that occasion in the first year when he had stumbled in at one in the morning and found Valjean sobbing on the settee, immediately assuming the worst, and how Javert had chastised him for such thinking.

10:40.

To soothe the shaking in his hands, Valjean sets about organising the room, straightening up the settee from where it was accidentally shifted – last time – and picks up the litter of theology tomes from where he has dropped them while postulating agitatedly. The act of cleaning soothes his mind. He is gently tucking away a work by Aquinas when he hears a noise that makes his stomach flip.

The door slams open.

Running into the hall, Valjean finds Javert standing in the doorway, and it is plain that something is wrong. Javert is hunched over. He looks up and smiles weakly, unbending enough that Valjean can observe the way that Javert clutches at his side, face wrought with pain. “Sorry,” Javert says, and immediately begins to buckle.

Valjean does not think. He is at Javert’s side in seconds, arms hoisting the man up with terrifying ease, depositing him with exacting gentleness onto their sofa. “What happened? What’s wrong?” he asks, and tugs Javert’s arm away. A sick rush floods his stomach. Blood stains Javert’s handprint, seeping through the crooks of his fingers, a large gash soaking colour into his shirt. And, Valjean realises, Javert’s summer coat is gone.

“Got j’mped,” Javert hisses. He is pale, only just keeping eye contact. “Took my gun, ‘n my coat.”

“Did you run?”

Three years ago, Javert would not have run, he would have stayed back and tried to beat a gang with naught but his fists if necessary. “Of course I ran,” Javert replies weakly.

“Good.” Valjean presses Javert’s hand back to the wound and pauses. He does not know the damage. Getting to the front door through the fumbling gardens must have worsened it. He curses himself for being so lax with his gardening, for this is not the same as living with Cosette, he lives with a policeman and the whimsy of the world is lessened through his exacting eye. Promising to be quick, he runs and calls for the doctor.

“What is it  _ this _ time,” Doctor Stein asks when he arrives, visibly worn out, more than accustomed to Valjean and Javert’s tendencies to get into horrific scrapes. His face pulls into one grim line when he sees Javert lain out on the settee, and grows even grimmer when he lays eyes on the wound.

He works for a long time. They administer a little laudanum to soothe the pain and Javert drops into sleep at midnight. Doctor Stein does not finish with his work until 2, having sent Valjean to collect everything from a cold compress to a blanket to warm his shoulders. Valjean spends the whole affair hovering unhelpfully and lifting Javert up when necessary. More than once the doctor has dryly suggested that Valjean take up a job in the hospital as a jack, not noticing the way it makes Valjean flinch, having no reason to know of the nickname despite being more than familiar with Valjean’s lash marks and brand.

“The wound was severe,” the doctor eventually says, straightening up. Javert is shirtless, bandaged heavily along his waist. With his shirt gone bruising has been revealed, deep purples and pinks snaking unpleasantly up his chest, some around his neck. It reminds Valjean of the martingale, and he looks away.

“What must I do?” Valjean asks.

“I will leave you a bottle of laudanum. I will come to change his bandages for a few days, then I will leave you to do it. If he becomes feverish – well, then you must nurse him with food and water and comfort, there is little I can do. We will talk of payment once he is recovered.”

“And he will recover?”

Doctor Stein stretches, removes the blanket from his shoulders, and looks Valjean directly in the eye. “We both know he has suffered far worse. He should recover, yes. I worry only for his mind, Monsieur. It is not healthy for a man to be so frequently abused.”

With that, he doffs his hat and leaves, pressing a bottle into Valjean’s hand as he does so. Valjean stares for a moment at the glass edges of the bottle of laudanum, then at the sickly figure sleeping near him. He ducks down and presses a kiss to Javert’s brow. “I love you,” he mutters, then adds another log to the fire. More than accustomed to sleeping thus, he settles himself into an armchair and keeps careful watch until he slips away.

*

True to the doctor’s warning, Javert has a fever.

Two days have passed. Javert wakes often but rarely for long, not so injured that he is comatose, hurt enough that his expression is perpetually pinched with discomfort. He seeks Valjean’s company at all hours. Often they merely bask in one another’s company, Javert taking Valjean’s hand and kissing each finger individually, careful not to exacerbate his injuries.

Now he has a fever. He is awake but barely lucid, obviously oppressed by the heat. Valjean dabs at his brow with a soaked rag and convinces him to eat a little soup.

A sheen of distance covers Javert’s eyes. It is as though he sees the world through a filter, one created by his sickness, distorting normalcy into some horrific dream. He whimpers, unmanned. Often, when he dreams, he cries out, trying to twist away from unseen figures, the experience worsened by the fact that Valjean is forced to hold him down to prevent him opening the wound again.

Nothing is so terrible as when Javert dreams of the river. It happens frequently, it has done ever since that fateful night, and it is always obvious because of the way he thrashes, fighting an unseen current, sometimes weeping and setting his jaw like a man possessed. It is not something that they speak of. After determining that yes, Javert no longer wished to die and yes, he would stay with Valjean to ensure his safety, it seemed a cruelty to try and dredge up the memories. They skirt around the topic in the same way that they skirt around Toulon. If Valjean is plagued by sudden remembrances of the lash, or the stink of the ocean, he never mentions it. He will never return.

Settling Javert into his pillow, Valjean sets the rag down and brushes a chaste touch of the lips to Javert’s cheek. The warmth radiating from him battles that of the fire.

Doctor Stein arrives in the early afternoon, and he frowns. “Go outside,” he demands of Valjean. “Get some air. I need no assistance.”

He does as he is told.

The garden blossoms for him. Valjean trails fingers along the flower heads and leaves them bobbing in his wake, sunlight draping itself along the boughs of the trees, the promise of fruits conspiring together. It is achingly beautiful. Ghosts of Cosette flitter through the long grasses, the hem of her white skirt dancing about. Valjean has not seen her for a week, although he has written a long missive explaining the situation. Her response was short but dripping with concern. The baby – although he really must stop thinking of Jeanne as  _ the baby _ because she walks and babbles – takes up much of Cosette’s time.    

When Javert is well again they must go and visit Cosette. One of Valjean’s favourite sights is that of Javert tersely bouncing Jeanne on his knee as though she were a doll rather than a child, plainly at a loss. No, Javert is not fatherly. He obviously loves Jeanne, but he was never taught to show it, so it comes out in the oddest ways. He tells her stories of inn brawls, despite her inability to understand, and once he offered the child his cudgel to play with, watching helplessly as she rammed the handle into her mouth and tried to suck on it. That was quite some time ago. Now she is capable of picking up a cudgel and thwacking it about, much to everyone’s collective distaste.

It is strange to think of Javert when the man is so close. Yet he is so distant – he is always distant in his sicknesses, troubled and damaged and feeling unloved.

Valjean cradles the head of a voluminous rose and breaks the stem with one precise snap, raising it to his nose and drinking the scent. Smatterings of deep red fleck the subtle pink of its petals, desires twisting through pastel. When Javert wakes, Valjean will give him his rose, and Javert will scoff and call him a fool and will discreetly smell at it when he thinks Valjean cannot see.

Once the doctor leaves the house, Valjean has placed himself at the foot of a tree and is peering into the branches.

“If his fever has not subsided when I come tomorrow, then I will continue to visit. If it breaks overnight, well, tomorrow I shall teach you how to care for his bandages and you should be in the clear.” His eyes track down to the flower, and he smirks. “Until then, Monsieur Valjean.”

“Thank you, Monsieur le docteur,” Valjean replies, watching the lean figure stalk away. Doctor Stein takes great enjoyment in the knowledge of secrets. What a strange thing, to delight so in the hidden lives of two uncommon men! Whenever they are in private, he makes a point of using Valjean’s true name (having immediately intuited that ‘Fauchelevent’ was an alias, three years ago), and he references the details of the past constantly. Javert’s fall. Valjean’s criminal history. Their unusual relationship. Their presence at the barricades – and Valjean forgets how on  _ earth _ he pickpocketed  _ that _ titbit of information. Still, Stein is a good man, he would never disclose any of it. Merely revel in the fabulous knowledge of the talented physician.

Entering the house, Valjean finds Javert asleep.

Resting the rose on the nearby table, he observes the change in bandages, notes that the sheen of Javert’s brow is lessened, frowns at the angry purple that seems to have engulfed the skin of Javert’s chest.

*

Javert shouts in terror, that night, and while the nightmare is horrifying in its aggression it is accompanied by the breaking of his fever.

Exhaustedly, Valjean settles Javert back down into the pillow, having held him tightly for endless minutes as he fought, Javert slowly draining the stock of his imagination and slipping back into the black. He rests a palm against the man’s forehead and finds it cool. Fantastic relief washes through Valjean and he almost weeps.

This is not three years ago, the fear is less necessary, it will be alright.

As Valjean pours himself a wholly necessary glass of whiskey, he feels watched. He turns and sees two bright eyes peering at him through the darkness, the room lit by a sole candle. Javert is staring with the urgency of a hunger. As though just the sight of Valjean can sate him.

Valjean feels suddenly small.

“Hello,” Javert says, one hand kneading at his forehead.

“Hello.” Valjean picks up his glass and goes to kneel at Javert’s side. “How do you feel?”

“Poor. The heat has gone, yet the pain of the gash is terrible.”

“Will you need more laudanum?”

“Yes, shortly, but it will make me sleep, and I wish to talk to you.” Javert eyes the glass, and he smiles wryly. “Are things truly so bad?”

This makes Valjean laugh, for the first time in days. “There is no harm in a glass of whiskey. Not on long nights such as these.”

“I suppose.” Shifting into a more comfortable position, Javert sighs, then winces. “You should call for an officer in the morning, so that I may give a report on the assault.”

The idea of having other policemen around Rue Plumet intensely discomforts Valjean, but he nods. Javert is still looking at him strangely. “I will do that. Have you any other wishes, sweet?”

Javert grins his wolfish grin and – ah, yes, there is the inspector Valjean knows. Illness may have washed out the man’s cheeks and drawn lines of pain along his forehead, but it hasn’t damaged the man’s marvellous ability to appear thoroughly devilish. “I have many other wishes,” Javert mutters, trying to sound coy yet entirely given away by his smile. “Alas, they cannot be fulfilled.”

“You sly dog,” Valjean laughs. Somehow, Javert grins wider. “I am glad that you are well enough to jest with me. That is promising.”

“Tis no jest!” Javert protests, and sighs tiredly. “I have overestimated myself. Come, a touch of laudanum. And if you are quite awake…?”

He needs not finish his request. Valjean gathers the bottle and a book and administers the meagre amount of liquid before propping open their second-hand copy of  _ Pamela _ , whisky smoothing his voice. Inevitably, Javert drops off a few pages in, and Valjean scarcely makes it to his chair before he, too, drifts away.

*

“As slow as you like,” the policeman says, in an attempt at considerate behaviour.

Why they sent Dubois, Valjean cannot fathom. Inspectors seems too high ranking for simple missions like this. Perhaps it is a slow day, perhaps the streets are already full of officers, perhaps something approximating friendship has grown between the two inspectors despite their petty arguing. In any case, Inspector Dubois is  _ in Rue Plumet,  _ in Valjean’s damned  _ house _ , and he is less than delighted.

Javert is propped up so he can better speak, although it drains much of the colour from his cheeks. Earlier, the doctor visited and offered a brief lesson in bandages before disappearing until next week, all too happy to take the significant coin that Valjean impressed upon him. Too much coin, Javert would argue, only they pay the man for his silence as well as his skills and there is no such thing as ‘too safe’ when it comes to discretion.

“There were three men,” Javert begins, tersely. “Two your height, one a little taller than myself. Two brunets, one blond, the blond was the tallest. Brunets both had hair cropped short, one had a moustache, blond had curls to the shoulder. Too dark to see the eyes but I fancy the brunet with the moustache had blue. All dressed in good coats, no hats.”

He continues in this way for some time, listing attributes. Valjean is astonished at how much he recalls but Dubois makes no comment, scribbling notes in his book, occasionally raising one eyebrow. Once Javert runs out of detail, Dubois pauses. “And what happened? Event by event.”

Javert scowls. He knows the interviewing process, he does not need prodding, but he does not complain.

Only then he falters. “I was walking in the alley behind the local bakery,” he begins, with a little more reservation. “I heard nothing. I was a few metres from the exit when I felt hands about my back, one reaching at my chest and another at my throat. I tried to cry out but the hand at my throat held my jaw shut, so I could make no sound. They tightened their grasp, and –“

His hand traces the bruising about his neck, white shirt buttoned loosely around him for the sake of propriety, only its restriction seems to be bothering him. Valjean stands from where he has been leaning against the door.

“Javert?” His voice is gentle, but urgent, and Dubois casts a nervous glance his way.

For a long moment, Javert seems not to see them, caught in the memory of his recounting. Then he blinks. His throat works as he shudders a heaving breath. “My apologies. They tightened their grasp around my neck. Whichever had grabbed me spoke my name.”

In a weak, faltering voice, Javert continues. His tale is not long and it feels like an eternity before he is done. Unaccountably furious at the man’s presence, Valjean hurries Dubois out the moment that the story is complete, caring not for the glare he receives as the policeman stumbles down the steps and into the garden.

“Javert,” Valjean says, hurrying into the room and finding the inspector covering his face, flinching at the voice. “Javert, are you well?”

Drawing the man’s hands from his eyes he finds them shaking, eyes downcast, abashed. “I know not what came over me,” Javert mutters. “I.”

Truly, Valjean recognises this. He has found himself thus afflicted – albeit not in a while. Those first weeks out of Toulon, the first years, sometimes he would slip off into a trance of memories, struggling to define the real from the remembered, the nightmare of his own life made more tangible in its wake.

Careful not to touch his side, Valjean cradles Javert until the shaking subsides. “You should sleep,” he whispers.

Javert nods absently.

Once they are again separated by the veil between the asleep and the awake, Valjean lifts up the rose on the table, left there after a quiet morning. Much as Valjean had expected, Javert had verbally snubbed the gift but thumbed the soft petals with exquisite appreciation, charmed by the choice in colour, the perfect juxtaposition of the bold and the soft.

Touching the petals again, Valjean finds comfort in the motion. He will write to Cosette. He will produce good food. Terrors plague them both, and he will have to battle it with roses and gestures until they can, at the very least, forget awhile.

*   

A few nights later, they talk

They talk for  _ hours _ , and they discuss all that they’ve been pushing aside, talk about Toulon and Faverolles and Montreuil and the tiny Romani boy who was born in a cell and scorned his mother. Both of them struggle. Javert is tired; beads of perspiration gather on his forehead at the effort, refusing to rest when Valjean suggests it. Valjean is emotionally ruined by some of it – he weeps at the memory of Jeanne Valjean, and Toulon, and the dead Monsieur Madeleine – his life has been so full of misery that he cannot help but sob.

Neither knows who started the conversation, only that it began and quickly grew beyond their imagining.

“I regret my treatment of my mother,” Javert admits. His voice is a breath against the smattering of rain outside, a warm deluge that bows the heads of the trees. “I scarcely remember her, now.”

“Yes, but you were young. I regret that I stole that damned bread, and somehow I struggle to picture what my life could have been without it.” Resting his chin in his hands, Valjean muses. “I suppose I would have remained a tree pruner in the provinces. Remained with my sister, helped to raise her children.”

“Truly, you never wanted a family of your own?” Javert sounds guilty, as though he has himself stolen. It is not an irrational conclusion. Fatherhood is a life Valjean might have known.

“I was content with Cosette. I have never felt need to have a child of my own blood, although I’m sure I would enjoy it.” Valjean laughs. “In any case, there are certain conditions that I do not meet, as you well know.”

Rolling his eyes, Javert shifts himself upright, as he has been doing all night. “I suppose you are correct,” he replies drolly. “I cannot see us procreating. Which is wholly to the benefit of your hypothetical child. I abhor the thought of fatherhood.”

“A child of ours,” Valjean mutters. “They would be –“

“A living contradiction,” Javert bites. “They would be saint and sinner both, infinitely patient and short of temper, merciful yet never lenient, quarrelsome, yielding, aesthete, spartan, humble and ever proud! What a sorry child it would be.”

“You are too pessimistic. No, I fancy they would be kind. Steadfast, honest, witty, clever and observant, a child of God.”

Shaking his head, Javert sighs. “You overestimate my virtues, and quite lessen your own.”

“I keep a good eye for both,” Valjean mutters. There is a space for him on the settee so he moves from his armchair and sits next to Javert, suddenly upset at the lack of this hypothetical third, an impossible part of a non-existent trinity. He shakes it from his mind. Beneath his blanket, Javert is still thoroughly bandaged, although the bruising is less dramatic. Sickly green is hardly comforting, but Valjean is well acquainted with bruises, and it means that they are healing.

Once his brief inspection is done, he finds Javert looking at him again, with that same starved expression he wore after his fever.

“Your injury,” he warns.

“ _ Your injury _ ,” Javert mimics, and kisses Valjean all the same.

Valjean does not mean to kiss back; he does, of course, and he does for quite a long time, shifting his position so that he is framing Javert with his arms. He feels Javert’s satisfied smirk beneath his lips. God, does he love this man. He says as much, and Javert replies in kind, although he gives the impression that he would rather focus on the kissing than on talk.

“This is foolish,” he insists, drawing himself away. “I meant to discuss more tonight.”

“What more can we possibly say, Jean?”

To Javert’s visible disappointment, Valjean moves back to his previous arrangement, wringing his hands for a moment. “Your dreams,” Valjean says. “Your dreams, and what occurred with Dubois. If you can say –“

In one motion Javert silences Valjean. He pinches his brow.

“It is nothing,” he insists. “I simply… It is merely the case that… It seems, at times, that I am there again. That they are bearing upon me with a weapon and I am disarmed and unknowing. Valjean – I did not hear their approach. Never in my days have I missed the sounds of an attacker. I was thinking of you, and anticipating the meal you had made, and then they had me. You know – I believed I might die.” Javert is not inclined to crying and while the tears are visible in his eyes he allows them. “With the strength of his arm at my neck and my coat gone, I would have been powerless to stop them from finishing it there. By some providence I managed to escape with only this, and…”

The tears fall. “I am 55 years of age. I am not young. In spite of everything, I do not wish to leave. So my mind tricks me to thinking that I am there again, or that I am on the bridge, and that I must die for all I wish not to. Ghosts of what may have been…”

May have. “I shall help you,” Valjean promises with pure earnestness. “I know your affliction most personally. I have had much to be afraid of.”

Rain falls outside. Valjean draws Javert into his arms, pulling the blanket over them both, sharing the heat of their bodies. He kisses the inspector on the neck and smiles at the pleased sigh it elicits. Tomorrow, they will host Cosette, and things will begin to approach normalcy, although Valjean is guilty in his growing sadness that Javert will return to the streets and stray from his side.

*

While Marius cannot stay – he has important legal matters to attend to, and a grandfather to appease – yet he still greets Javert briefly and wishes him well.

“Fool,” Javert mutters after the front door has slammed, and while there is no heat to his words there is hardly any burgeoning affection. Instead he offers Cosette a genuine smile, shuffling up to a more comfortable position as she ducks down to speak with him.

“My dear inspector,” she coos. “Oh, good sir, father was quite right in his letters. Look at what those brutes have done.” She turns, and catches sight of Valjean in the room, who is indiscreetly eavesdropping as Jeanne tries to clamber up his legs. “Papa, bring Jeanne over a moment.”

With endless patience, Valjean carries Jeanne to the settee. She trills a greeting at Javert.

“Hello,” Javert replies gruffly. “What do you want of me now, hm?”

“Hi,” she says. “Hi!” With that, she tries to clamber onto Javert’s side, immediately hoisted up by Valjean at the panic in Javert’s eyes.

“Not there, dear.”

“Put her here, on my right.” Gesturing to a small free space, he watches as Jeanne is dutifully placed at his undamaged side, patting her on the head. “Now, child, have we learned anything new recently?”

“Let us leave them to it,” Cosette whispers, and Valjean nods.

They retreat to the kitchen, where Valjean makes them tea and produces some fantastic cake. Cosette congratulates him on the cake and then, clumsily, congratulates herself because she is due to have another child. Valjean almost drops his plate.

“Truly?” he asks, sounding faint.

“Truly,” she says. “Almost three months, although it is not showing overmuch. Marius thinks it will be a boy. I’m sure I don’t know about that, but we’re thinking of names.”

“You cannot call him Jean,” Valjean begins, and is immediately cut off by laughter.

“We will not call him Jean, although I can’t promise it won’t be a middle name,” Cosette reassures. “Nor shall we name him Javert. Partially because we think it is a last name, and whenever we ask, the inspector refuses to discuss the matter. No, if it is a boy we will name it for Marius’ father, Georges. If it is a girl…”

Her hands curve around her cup. “Fantine.”

Hearing that name from Cosette’s lips always dizzies Valjean. Something about it is  _ correct _ . Every time Cosette gives her mother’s name breath, they inch closer to a sense of closure. “A fine choice,” he manages to reply. “Congratulations, my child. A finer mother in Paris would be hard to find.”

“But Jeanne is an easy enough daughter, for all she loves to club her father with things.” She giggles. “It is rather funny. Marius is starting to feel abused.”

“By an infant?” Strange, to think that the man wore his blood like a scarf at the barricade, and now he is bested by his tiny daughter, sweet and belligerent thing that she is.

“It is easy enough, with Marius. Indeed, I feel a little bad for leaving Javert and Jeanne alone together. We should check on them.”

It is an unnecessary thing. They stand in the doorway to the room and find the pair dozing happily, Jeanne splayed out on Javert’s front, carefully manoeuvred such that she avoids any of the bandages, small head resting on Javert’s shoulder. Adoration strikes Valjean’s breast. Not once in his years of running would he have imagined Javert capable of existing in such a tender tableau. Lying, half-asleep, in Valjean’s (their) house, with Valjean’s (their) granddaughter curled up against him.

“How wonderful,” Cosette breathes. “You must prevent him from getting injured so.”

“Indeed I must,” Valjean agrees.

*

A week later, and Javert is walking, whether Doctor Stein approves or not.

“It is unnatural for a man not to move,” he huffs, and labours heavily upon his cane. “Come, Valjean, we should go out.”

They make it to the end of the street before Javert is too pained to continue, and turn back, Valjean carrying an abashed inspector through the garden. The next day they make it a little further, and the next, and then some wall of inhibition is broken and they travel the neighbourhood together. Save for one patch, which Javert avoids, until the fateful day on which they inevitably find themselves peering down a familiar alley.

Javert is quite pale. “Blast.” He pushes Valjean to keep walking, yet he cannot look away.

“Here?” is all Valjean says.

“Here,” Javert agrees.

For all they’re in public (although the street is quiet and shielded), Valjean throws caution to the wind and draws Javert into an embrace. “I have you,” he reassures him. “Nobody shall try again.”

*

“I will miss you,” Valjean murmurs.

“I had to return to my duties eventually.” Javert watches Valjean change into his nightgown from his place on the bed. “It is desk duty, it’s hardly any danger.”

“Still, I have grown accustomed to having you with me.” Moving the candle closer to the bed, Valjean finds himself momentarily brave. “Tomorrow, you should come and have lunch with me at Marie’s café.”

“You would go so close to the prefecture?”

“For you.”

Javert seems overcome. “Thank you,” he says, and reaches an arm out. “Come, come and love me. Tell me you have not missed it, I shan’t believe you.”

Abashed, Valjean lifts the blanket and slots himself over Javert, arms planted around the man’s ears and digging into the mattress. “I was too busy being concerned about your wellbeing,” Valjean says, trying to sound wholly sincere.

“I can tell when you lie,” Javert murmurs. It is not a chastisement. The thrill of his voice and the words sends a fantastic heat spiralling through Valjean’s gut, knowing that Javert desires and loves him, knowing that Javert  _ knows _ him so well. Cosette cannot tell when Valjean lies, although that is wholly his fault. Javert, however –

Javert is kissing him.

“I will be gentle,” Valjean gasps, long moments later.

“You always are,” Javert says, fondly. Long fingers trace the lines of Valjean’s jaw, worship the whorls of his ear. “To a fault.”

“Making love is gentle by nature.” Valjean words it thus only so he may see the blotchy blush rise on Javert’s cheeks, beatified in the candlelight, perfected in the summer heat. Time has reduced heavy bandaging to a sliver of white along Javert’s chest, wine dark bruising gone, mostly healed. His gaze still grows heavy at times. He still battles assailants who are long gone, but far less. Valjean splays a hand on Javert’s shoulder and lowers himself to leave hot kisses from ear to chest.

Javert is laughing quietly. Valjean smiles in spite of himself, heaves a long breath, then kisses Javert again – this time on the mouth.

 


End file.
